


A New Beginning

by DeepFriedLionLizard (little_valkyrie)



Series: 52 short stories in 52 weeks [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Headcanon, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5644195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_valkyrie/pseuds/DeepFriedLionLizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon divergence from the point of the Reeds in Winterfell on. Meera POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A New Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hardy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hardy/gifts).



> \------  
> Cracky nonsense done for my friend but it makes sense to us.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \------  
> Drabble from Meera POV speeding through before GOT to the time of Theon taking Winterfell. Meera Reed describing meeting part of the Royal Host to a canon divergence in which she follows her gut causing a change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 1. A story entitled “A New Beginning”.

The first time they meet is dubious at best. A group of crannogmen go to greet the king and his host as they head north to Winterfell. She comes up to offer him some of the spirits they make in the neck and is snarled at. “Be gone boy, from what ever sinkhole you crawled from before I cut you down and throw you back.”

“Of course ser.”

“Bugger your sers and bugger you. Leave me that wineskin”

He was already drunk, that was easy to tell so Lady Meera made no attempt to correct him. But although the large man though her of the same sex he leered at her openly during the night on their narrow camp. She and others would travel with them the whole fortnight it would take the giant group to make the trek across the neck, the queen’s wheel house being the largest hindrance. The whole time he said no more to her, either he realized his mistake or did not care to. Regardless it bothered her none. He was just another foolish andal that thought he could pass through the neck as if he owned it. It gave her a little bit of spiteful joy to see how sick he got from the very strong spirits they keep in the neck. The king too.

But no one could own the land...especially not her home where magic still lingered in the water.  
———  
It is many months later they meet again and this time she realizes who she was so openly watching and observing. He is known as The Hound and she feels a bit of a fool not making the connection before. As observant as she is sometimes the most obvious things elude her. She wonders if he is anything like his bother, the monster her father told her of during his travels south. There were many monsters in his stories of the past, they were the only ones that gave her nightmares.

This time she looks the part of a lady but not even her finest dress could hold a candle to the poorest of her liege ladies. She did not think anything she owned could compare to the queen. It made her chest ache and her ears burn to even think of it and instead kept to the edges of the group. She caught his staring again, Meera had been playing with the layer of her dress made of soft fishnet and covered in beetle wings to shine and had looked up to see him watching.

‘I wonder if he realizes that I am the boy he spoke so poorly too.’ But perhaps he was like the others and only sought to mock her for one perceived sin or another. The she was too small, too flat, too ugly and malformed to ever be a true lady. It made her very glad she was not going with them to King’s Landing. With all she had been told of the place it seemed like a place she wished to be far, far away from. ‘The wall is not far enough from what all I have heard.’

But he still stared. He stared at her liege lady as well and she did not like that at all. But he was his charge’s bride to be so it made sense he should watch her, and the swamps were a danger to all who were not born there. The land had a way of knowing who did not belong.

He watched her until they all parted ways, her back to her transient home and they to the shit filled jewel of their kingdom. Part of her could have sworn she saw him glance back and glance his eyes at her canoe and they vanished from sight into the rising sun.  
———  
The blood is sticky on her hands and there is shouting all around her. Meera has killed before: animals, predators, raiders that tried to steal from her brother and one man at an inn they stayed at they tried to drab her into a stable. But never in cold blood. Not like this.

Her brother told her not to, that the guards would stop her, but she tricked them into leaving very easily. ‘It was too easy, all of this was far too easy. And I feel wrong. So wrong, as if this wasn’t supposed to happen. I feel sick-‘ He thoughts are cut off by being yanked up off the filthy body of the manservant Reek and the knife take from her hands. There’s too many questions and she cannot hear what they are asking her. But soon enough she is in irons herself, the very same ones they brought the man in to the dungeon not long ago.

She is there for a while though visited often and given warm clothes and good food. Better than the food she had daily in her home and she envies the other lords greatly that they consider such a meal modest. ‘Perhaps I will wed a northern son that will have me, which ever ones survive the war. Surely not every man outside the neck can be opposed to a crannogman for a bride.’ Even an old man with no teeth would be worth being able to eat well.

But then the castle is taken and Meera is pulled from the dungeons to look after her brother and the prince. She is glad. Yes it is another prison but at least it doesn’t have bars. If she had to be left in a cold dark place with no windows again it would be too soon.  
———  
Meera could kick herself for thinking that the dungeon was a bad place. And least she was not surrounded by the dead there. And Food was brought to her as a hostage, now she had to sneak food from the kitchen for all of them and pray she was seen. ‘Can the gods see us down here? Can they protect us?’

She had to kill again in cold blood and her heart feels heavier even though it was not her idea this time and she had help from Osha. While the wild haired woman played as if she was to tend to the ironborn’s need she climbs behind him on the wall of the gangway and slit his throat.

The search continues but all that she has heard is Rodrick Cassel is returning from the ruse to take back the castle. Theon’s own sister refused to help him and left near no men. It will all be over soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://ourwritingtherapy.tumblr.com/post/135439311691/52-short-stories-in-52-weeks  
> Link to the writing therapy challenge.


	2. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking place between two of the paragraphs of the first chapter. Warning of rape mentions since were talking about "Reek" and ironborn here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 28. A story that ends at sunrise.

 There were a few things she learned in the dungeons: rich food made her stomach hurt when she was not distracted by conversation that would have her eat more slowly, for all their hate of the filthy man she killed the lords still claimed she was as dishonorable as her people were supposed to be, and that she had earned the respect of every woman in the castle that had ever been looked at, touch, or spoken to by a man that did not want it. Especially the wilding woman Osha.

She was brought small comforts here and there. A kitchen girl brought her little bits of food that would not be missed and a maid brought her an extra blanket. Everyone knew of Reek’s crimes but it seemed that the girls and women were the ones effected to the point of vigilanteism. They were happy he was not there to haunt their dream of getting out. Happy that they no longer had to have their fears trivialized by the guards laughing and saying they were only at risk from him if they were dead. Not a comfort when he participated in the hideous and gruesome “hunts” as well. The men had not believed Lady Hornwood’s tales, the girls told Meera in their visits but they did. Any girl worth her salt knew how monstrous men could be even if they were not a Bolton bastard.

‘A thankfully dead bastard. I’m glad Ser Rodrick killed him, wish they had killed this one too, so I would not be in here now.’

Osha was her most frequent visitor, full of back handed compliments at a little southern lady’s decisiveness. But she meant well, her tongue was as sharp as her face but she was honest and the only one that believed her reasons. Meera was worried by how much the northern lords were like their southern cousins. Osha laughed at her by her surprise and said she would make a half decent spear wife had she been born on the other side of The Wall. The wilding was the only one that found her jests humorous and applauded her and the Crannogmen’s ability to keep as much of the old ways as possible.

Was the only one that outright said Meera made the right choice.

There were two more things that she learned: she hated being enclosed and that her brother was not as staunchly her supporter as she was is his. ‘Or rather was....’ she thought ruefully. He had only come by once to tell her that this would happen and she got mad, yelling at him what else she was supposed to do. That he didn’t know or see everything. She said so much she did not mean. She had been so angry. And her heart was heavy.

The man deserved to die she had no question of that, but it hurt her heart that she had done it in cold blood. She was not his lord, it was not her right to regardless of her crimes. But the king was so far away and prince Bran would do nothing...what else could be done?

So she sits...and she waits until a feeling of dread over comes her. She wakes to the howls of the dire wolves in the godswood and knows something is wrong. She takes her blanket and moves to the shadows of the cell and stays and watches as men come into the dungeon. She thinks it’s the guards but the armor is wrong and her eyes go wide with horror. ‘Iron born!’

She had seen the dead raiders armor in the swamps enough time to know what it looked like. Heavy but flexible and good for bot archery and swordsmanship, and not so confining it could not be warn while manning a ship. She had heard of Ser Rodrick responding to the attacks along the western rivers near Torrhen's Square but Winterfell was too far inland. It was one thing for The Neck to suffer the raiders, they fell easy to the swamps and rarely did they have to raise arms, but this was unheard of!

‘Bad enough Moat Cailing fell...but how? How did they get through the swamps. Unless....’ It was glaringly apparent that the iron born seemed to have grown land legs if they were here. Whats to say they did not attempt to cross her home to take the old ruins.

They would know she was in her soon enough and she feared she would not be able to fight them off at all. How fitting that she killed a rapist and now meet the same fate as his victims. ‘Mayhap’s they will only take me hostage...but there is nothing that says a hostage will be safe. I proved that readily enough I suppose.’

She wasn’t found until sunrise and they brought her out to stand by her brother and the princes. This was all too much and it terrified her so many worst case scenarios were running though her mind she could barely hear her captor asking her a question until she got shoved by the butt of a bow knocking her down some.

They were asking her if she would repay them for freeing her as the wilding woman had. said she would. There were not so many of them...and though she disobeyed she was not traitor. “There is only one here that I serve and his name is Stark. I thank you for opening the door...but only one here has the say over if I am free or not. I am Lady Meera of House Reed and I am no trail of the iron born.” There was a move to attack her as she stood and walked to where he brother was beside the prince but the cries against their captor, that when she listened she learned was the ward of the former lord, raised from a boy with the people this castle he now held hostage. Now killed. She did not know what this would bring to pass but it did serve one benefit, she was no longer behind bars.

**Author's Note:**

> http://ourwritingtherapy.tumblr.com/post/135439311691/52-short-stories-in-52-weeks  
> Link to the writing therapy challenge.


End file.
